The Abandonment of Christ the King: Border “Bishops” Preach Naturalistic Humanism
The EWTN News portal reports that eighteen U.S. Catholic “bishops” and “archbishops” from border states issued a statement ahead of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, urging policy changes on immigration enforcement. Their recommendations focus on “human dignity,” “due process,” and “sensitive locations” like churches, entirely within the framework of natural law and secular rights discourse, with no reference to the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the supernatural purpose of law, or the Church’s divinely given authority to guide temporal affairs. This statement is a quintessential manifestation of the post-conciliar apostasy, reducing the Church’s social mission to a mere humanitarian NGO operating within the principles of Modernist liberalism condemned by the pre-1958 Magisterium.
1. Theological Omission: The Silent Abdication of Christ’s Kingship
The most damning feature of the statement is its complete silence on the fundamental Catholic doctrine that all law and governance must be subordinate to the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Quas Primas (1925), dogmatically defined the feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism.” The Pope declared:
When God and Jesus Christ – as we lamented – were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed, because the main reason why some have the right to command and others have the duty to obey was removed.
The “bishops’” statement operates entirely within the very error Pius XI anathematized. They acknowledge “the right and duty of a sovereign nation to enforce its laws” as a natural, political principle, but they never assert that these laws must be conformed to the “divine commandments and Christian principles” as the same Pope demanded. Their call for “human dignity” is a vague, naturalistic concept divorced from its only true foundation: the fact that man is created in the image and likeness of God, redeemed by the Blood of Christ, and destined for eternal life. This is the precise “indifferentism” condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), which states:
Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true… Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation… (Errors 15 & 16).
By framing immigration policy in terms of “human rights” without anchoring these rights in the exclusive Kingship of Christ and the salvific mission of the Catholic Church, the “bishops” propagate the very indifferentism that leads souls to perdition. They treat the state as a neutral entity, when Catholic doctrine, as reaffirmed by Leo XIII in Immortale Dei (1885), holds that the state has a positive duty to publicly recognize and protect the Catholic religion as the sole true religion.
2. Modernist Anthropology: The Cult of Man Replaces the Cult of God
The language of the statement is pure Modernism, reducing the Gospel to a social program of “justice” and “dignity” defined by worldly standards. This is the “synthesis of all heresies” condemned by St. Pius X in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907) and the decree Lamentabili sane exitu (1907). The “bishops” speak of “human rights” and the “common good” in the abstract, echoing the Modernist error that faith must be reduced to a “practical function” (Lamentabili, Proposition 26). They completely ignore the supernatural order.
Catholic social teaching, as articulated by Pius XI in Quas Primas, is inextricably linked to the sacramental and hierarchical structure of the Church:
Since Christ as Redeemer acquired the Church with His Blood, and as Priest offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sins… it is evident that His royal authority contains both these offices and shares in them.
The “bishops” make no mention of the Mass, the sacraments, the state of grace, or the ultimate end of man—the Beatific Vision. Their concern is limited to temporal well-being, which, while legitimate, is subordinate to the spiritual good. This naturalistic focus is a direct fruit of the conciliar revolution, which in Gaudium et Spes (1965) shifted the Church’s focus from the supernatural to the secular, promoting the “cult of man” that St. Pius X warned would lead to “the most pernicious errors” (Lamentabili, Introduction). The statement’s demand to “minimize the separation of families” without any reference to the supernatural unity of the Mystical Body or the necessity of Catholic marriage for the salvation of souls is a classic example of this reduction.
3. The Error of Church/State Separation: Rejecting the Catholic Doctrine of the Social Kingship
The “bishops” operate on the unstated but fundamental premise that the Church and the State are separate spheres, with the Church acting as a moral advisor on natural law principles while the State remains sovereign in its own domain. This is the heresy of “separation of Church and State” explicitly condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (Error 55):
The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.
Further, they assume the State has a “right” to exist and govern independently of the Church, which contradicts the Catholic doctrine that all legitimate authority derives from God and is bound by His law. The Syllabus also condemns the idea that “the State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits” (Error 39). The “bishops” do not challenge the state’s sovereignty; they merely ask it to be more “humane” within its own naturalistic framework.
Pius XI in Quas Primas left no ambiguity:
It would, of course, be the task of Catholics to prepare and hasten this return [to Christ’s reign] through their work and activity; however, many of them do not hold the position in so-called social life, nor do they have the significance that those who carry the torch of truth should have… But if all the faithful understood that they must fight bravely and always under the banner of Christ the King…
The “bishops” do not call for the “banner of Christ the King.” They do not demand that the State recognize the Catholic faith as the sole religion of the country (as required by the Syllabus, Error 77). Instead, they employ the language of pluralistic “rights,” which is the language of the Americanist heresy condemned by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae (1899). Their advocacy is for a more efficient, less brutal secular state, not for the establishment of the Social Reign of Christ.
4. The Sacramental Neglect: No Mention of the Source of True Charity
The statement is utterly silent on the source of Catholic social teaching: the life of grace, the sacraments, and the liturgical worship of God. This silence is itself a damning accusation. The “bishops” speak of “protecting churches” as physical locations where people can attend Mass, but they do not speak of the Mass as the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary, the source and summit of Christian life. They do not mention that the primary duty of a Catholic pastor is to provide the sacraments—especially Penance and the Eucharist—to souls in danger of damnation.
This omission aligns perfectly with the Modernist principle condemned by Pius X: the reduction of religion to a “practical function” and the separation of faith from its supernatural foundations. The “bishops” treat the Church as a beneficial social institution, not as the Mystical Body of Christ, the sole ark of salvation. Their concern for “access to… religious services” in detention centers is framed as a matter of “human rights,” not as the urgent necessity for the sacraments to rescue souls from mortal sin and eternal damnation. This is the “hermeneutics of continuity” in action: grafting a naturalistic, humanitarian concern onto a shell of Catholic terminology, while emptying it of its supernatural content.
5. Symptomatic of the Conciliar Apostasy: A “Church” of the New Advent
This statement is not an anomaly; it is the logical outcome of the doctrinal revolution initiated by the Second Vatican Council. The council’s document Gaudium et Spes embraced the “signs of the times” and adopted a secular, anthropocentric perspective. The “bishops” are simply applying the council’s principles to a specific issue. Their framework is the same as that of the “Abomination of Desolation” occupying the Vatican since the death of Pope Pius XII—a “church” that has exchanged the immutable truths of faith for the evolving “consciences” of Modernism.
Their appeal to “work with them to create an immigration system which ensures public safety, protects human rights, encourages economic growth and justice, and upholds our heritage as a nation of immigrants” is pure Gaudium et Spes language. It is a blueprint for the “Church of the New Advent,” a man-centered, dialogue-focused, secularized entity that has no place for the dogma “Outside the Church there is no salvation” (Cantate Domino, 1441, Council of Florence). The “bishops” implicitly reject the teaching of Pope Pius IX in Quanto conficiamur (1863) that “the Catholic religion… is the only religion which can be called true,” and they deny the State’s duty to repress false religions and protect the Catholic faith (Syllabus, Errors 77-80).
Conclusion: A Call to Reject the Conciliar Sect and Return to Tradition
The statement from the border “bishops” is a clear exposition of the theological and spiritual bankruptcy of the post-conciliar “church.” It is a document of pure naturalism, Modernist in its anthropology, indifferentist in its ecclesiology, and secularist in its politics. It represents a complete abandonment of the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as defined by Pius XI in Quas Primas, and a full embrace of the errors condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus and by St. Pius X in Lamentabili.
True Catholic pastors would be calling for the conversion of the nation to the one true Church, the establishment of laws based on the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ, and the defense of the sacraments as the sole means of salvation. They would be denouncing the “rights of man” as a rebellion against the rights of God. Instead, these men, occupying sees that have been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII, offer a sanitized, Protestantized version of charity that serves the “cult of man” and aids the globalist agenda of the conciliar revolution.
The faithful are bound to reject this statement and all who promulgate it as representatives of a false church. They must seek refuge in the immutable Tradition of the Catholic Church, which alone teaches that “all power in heaven and on earth is given to Christ the Lord” (Matt. 28:18), and that every human law and social structure must be ordered to His glory and the salvation of souls. The only “wish list” for a Catholic is the full restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King over all nations, through the true papacy and the Catholic episcopacy in communion with the unchanging faith of the ages.
Source:
Border bishops issue immigration policy wish list ahead of State of the Union (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 24.02.2026